Findings: Disappearing Daycare

Missouri’s childcare deserts in 2023, by Zip Code Tabulation Area

Methodology

  • In the scipt etl/2_get_scta-2017-2021-acs.R, I retrieved the 5-Year ACS population estimates by ZCTA, and summed the age groups under six to get total amount of children five and under by ZCTA
  • The number of children five or under by ZCTA is from here on “demand” and I use it to create a ratio with the “supply,” which is licensed capacity of facilities by zip code, provided by ChildCareAware
  • In etl/3_zip-zcta-crosswalk-ChildCareAware.R, I crosswalked the zip code level data from ChildCareAware to ZCTA level data so that it can be properly compared to ACS population estimates by ZCTA
  • Any ZCTA where the demand is three times more than the supply is determined a “desert,” or in other words, any ZCTA where the children-to-slot ratio is equal to or more than 3:1
  • Any ZCTA where the ratio is equal to or more than 10:1 is “extreme” and marked in darker red for now on the map

Total number of children five or under in childcare deserts across Missouri in 2023

171,048 children of five or under across Missouri live in zip codes areas that are childcare deserts. This is over one-third of children five or under.

Population in childcare deserts

Total population

Methodology

  • The number of children in deserts is the total amount of children in zctas with ratios greater than or equal to 3:1
  • This equals out to 171,048 in 227 zctas that are childcare deserts. In total, there are 442,254 children under 5 or under across the state

How did childcare deserts change during the pandemic?

From 2019 to September 2020, the number of childcare programs decreased by 30%, leaving 70,000 more children in childcare deserts than the year before. During 2020, the number of children in childcare deserts was the highest it has reached in the last several years.

The number of programs bounced back sharply by six months later though, and since 2021, the number of children in childcare deserts has steadily towards where it was pre-pandemic.

Number of children in childcare deserts by month and year

Number of childcare programs by month and year

Age breakouts of programs that recieved money for startup, expansion, or enhancement

Of programs that received CRRSA funding for startup, expansion, or enhancement, less than half as many slots were added for infant and toddlers as for preschool aged children.

Potential difference between capacity and real number of slots

Of programs that received CRRSA funding for startup, expansion, or enhancement, several programs marked their anticipated capacity at 10 or more children less than the number of slots they added.

Did pandemic relief funding go to childcare desert zips we’ve indentified?

Of the total of 114,681,667 dollars in the data we recieved, less than a fourth of it went to childcare deserts.

Methodology

  • In the script 4_clean-relief-data.R, I cleaned and parsed addresses for each application to connect it to a valid Missouri zip code. In a several instances, zip codes were typed in correctly, and I had to manually look up the address and correct the zip code. These instances are marked accordingly in the script.
  • I then concatenated all the relief data we received together, by program, amount and zip
  • Finally, I crosswalked the zip codes to ZCTAs so that I could then compare how much money went to ZCTAs labeled as a desert versus ones labeled as not a desert